Howdy:

Wehave been the "web editor" to The Pituophis Page on kingsnake.com for many years.  Because of that fact combined with our strong interest in this genus, I've had people encouraging me to write a detailed book on Pituophis targeted toward the hobbyists and general captive propagation.  The idea remained in the back of our minds for years.   

Recently, we were placed in contact with a great publisher, and it was decided that we would actually begin writing an intermediate to advanced hobbyist level book on the entire Pituophis complex.  In addition to the text portion of the natural history of each subspecies, we plan to have an image of various representative individuals and the habitat where they are found and to have images of various morphs for each subspecies.  The Pituophis is so large and complex that we are well aware that we can't do this on my own.  In addition to having my wife and I being co-authors, we need images from as many sources/people as possible.  In our eyes, this project is something to which we hope much of the herp community will end up contributing.

Currently, we am trying to get images from as many people as possible as long as they won't mind me using their images for this project.  Of course, credit will be given in the book to the photographer who owns the image.  If you've got any such images you wouldn't mind me using, please send them to us at pitphotos@gmail.com.  If you know anyone else that might be interested in letting me use some of their images, please feel free to spread this request around.  They can contact me directly at that address.  The more the merrier! 

Images need to be a minimum of 300dpi at "print size," but a higher resolution is better.  Outside images with natural lights are better than inside images under artificial light, but it is not necessary to have all of the images in "natural looking" settings.  Images of wild animals in  their habitat are always best, though.   I'm also going to be in dire need of images of breeding, egg incubation, hatching, adult and juvenile cages and racks, PROBLEMS such as dystocia and dysecdysis, various cage substrates, etc.  In other words, if you SEE it keeping Pituophis, we'd like an image of it!  We really need some additional Pituophis habitat photographs!

As far as the "look" of images we need, remember that as a general rule - and this is an important one - images taken at a 30-45 degree angle from the snake are usually the most visually pleasing.  Natural sunlight is frequently too harsh for good photos, but overcast days (or shaded areas if you have an external flash) are great.  Visually pleasing images and/or ones of uncommon varieties of snakes are the ones I'm most likely going to be able to add to the book.  Images where the snake isn't the central focus - or are just a tiny portion of the image - are usually not useable in print media like this.  Make sure that the snake's head is toward the camera - and in perfect focus - but you do not usually want the snake looking directly at the camera.

Thanks and shoot me an email if you think you've got images that will help this project along!
KJ Lodrigue, Jr.